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Top 10 holy grail cassette decks?

I believe Nr.1 cassette tape deck is Studer A80QC.

However for loaded in shells cassette tapes it can be used only together with loader like Otari DP-2700, because you need to wind tape out from shell before reproduction ;)
I have original head block for cassette test tape recording together with amplifiers too. In picture is bi-directional reproduce only version what can be converted to recording version within 5 minutes.

CR7 is Nr.2.

Studer_A80_QC_with_tape.jpgCassete_head_A80QC.jpg
 
Before we became a Nakamichi dealer we had great luck selling Studer and Pioneer . In fact we were the largest Pioneer dealer for cassette machines in the rocky Mountain region from the Canadian to the Mexican border. I owned a Revox for a while but ended up with Nakamichi machines after a few years. They just did a better job more consistently. I had a 581 series and 682 series. I thought about a Dragon, but I bought a HS 2 trk Revox B-77 instead. And then I added a 1/4 trk stereo head to play tapes I had made on A-77's I sold. The Nakamichi's could put more signal on the tape with lower distortion and had better signal to noise ratios. I will admit the Revox could rewind and Fast forward faster. But that didn't make it sound better or make better tapes. I had both cassette machines for over 30 years and all I had to do was clean the tape paths, clean the switches, and the variable controls once in a great while. Tapes improved dramatically over the years till the 90's and the Nakamichi's were easy to calibrate. I only played tapes I made so I didn't have any head alignment issues playing pre-recorded tapes or other peoples tapes., I was strictly a Maxell UD tape user after about a year screwing arround with other brands of tape with very disappointing results. TDK made some good tape by the way.
 
On second thoughts, my holy grail cassette deck would be a Clarke Audio-restored Nakamichi 1000 ZXL Limited Edition with ZX-9 transport, upgraded caps and internal wiring, new gold plated connectors + replacement of the hard-wired power cable with a Furutech NCF iec.

1701084978181.jpeg
 
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stoN_Cold said:
I would really like to see that and others, of course!
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I actually just re-thought that idea & would go for a ZX-9 transport in lieu of a Dragon, which Willy has also done before. More stable tape travel (less tape skewing) vs the Dragon.
 
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stoN_Cold said:
MY grail collection :rockon:

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Wow....!
Been a while since i've seen some of these.

Best deck I ever had was a CR-7 (had Dragon, revox 215, Nak 505) but CR-7 was the best sounding IMO.

However had a Hitachi D3300M prior to any of these and it was very very good.

Suffice to say I sadly moved on from cassette -wish i'd kept the CR7.

......however have recently bought a cheap Hitachi D3300M (in the darker livery) from the 'Bay to rekindle those cassette moments and it's as good as I remember it being
 
I don't care what anybody says, the Denon DR-M44HX should be no 10th on that list. I have the 24Hx and it's a fantastic machine, at least sound wise. The best thing about these 1987-1988 Denon machines is that few seem to know about them, meaning you could get one for less money than another comparable model from another brand.
 
Alex Nikitin said:
And on the thread subject. All really depends on the purpose of getting a deck. If you make a list of 10 greatest decks that could be gems in a collection it will be one list, if you need a workhorse deck that will be serviceable for years to come and with a good sound quality to boot it may be a completely different list. And you need to take into account that there is almost zero chance to find a deck out of either of these two potential lists in a fully working condition if is not from a reputable service technician. Any deck of this level would need quite a lot of work done on it before it can be anything more than a collection item. And many could only be collection items now.

A simple example - the Pioneer CT-F1250. One of the better looking decks - sure. But if you expect it to work well - not many chances, really, without a full service and a new head. And where exactly can you get a new head for it? And if something breaks in that deck you are more or less stuck - many bits only can be cannibalised from a donor unit.

Another example - top Nakamichi decks. Some of these are great, but on many now the heads are worn up to a large degree and when the PB head is gone you are stuck again - the only way to restore the deck is to find another with the same heads in a better condition.

IMHO, we need a different kind of list of best 10 decks for people who want to use them daily and not just admire the looks.

Cheers

Alex
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Good point. I have an Onkyo Integra 2760 and mechanically wise it looks very sturdy and easier to work on than my Denons, for example.

Not the best sound, but at this point in time ruggedness and durability are more important than pure sound quality.

I don't even know where to service my decks, I don't trust anyone.
I'm having trouble finding a decent mechanic for my bicycles, let alone my precious cassette decks or walkmans....
 
twiiii said:
Before we became a Nakamichi dealer we had great luck selling Studer and Pioneer . In fact we were the largest Pioneer dealer for cassette machines in the rocky Mountain region from the Canadian to the Mexican border. I owned a Revox for a while but ended up with Nakamichi machines after a few years. They just did a better job more consistently. I had a 581 series and 682 series. I thought about a Dragon, but I bought a HS 2 trk Revox B-77 instead. And then I added a 1/4 trk stereo head to play tapes I had made on A-77's I sold. The Nakamichi's could put more signal on the tape with lower distortion and had better signal to noise ratios. I will admit the Revox could rewind and Fast forward faster. But that didn't make it sound better or make better tapes. I had both cassette machines for over 30 years and all I had to do was clean the tape paths, clean the switches, and the variable controls once in a great while. Tapes improved dramatically over the years till the 90's and the Nakamichi's were easy to calibrate. I only played tapes I made so I didn't have any head alignment issues playing pre-recorded tapes or other peoples tapes., I was strictly a Maxell UD tape user after about a year screwing arround with other brands of tape with very disappointing results. TDK made some good tape by the way.
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Very interesting info, thanks.
PS I started buying tapes right before they started disappearing, I had my best results back then(2004) with TDK tapes, both cheap and expensive. For example they had the smoothest and easiest to move reels, which helped with recording and playback. I had walkmans that wouldn't play certain RAKS tapes because the reels they used had so much drag in them it just affected playback and recording on certain machines.
 
Greetings Folks,

I have a slightly different take on this and I was hoping you all could help me find a deck..... Here is what I want in no specific order..... (some of these are silly, but I am just being honest....)

1. "Nicer" brand. It doesn't have to be a Nakamichi or whatnot, but I don't want a $79 1982 plastic-y Realistic in my rack of Manley, ClearAudio and Aurender components.

2. I'd like something that doesn't need "servicing." After getting it serviced once, if necessary, I'd like it to just run for many years.....

3. If direct drive (vs belts) is an option, then I guess I would like to have that. However, if belts are easily sourced and self-replaced, then that's OK too.

4. Ideally, I'd like to have a mechanical head engagement over some "logic controlled" motorized engagement. My thinking here is it would be less likely to fail on me.

5. I don't need some crazy-awesome head alignment apparatus like is on the Dragon and other high end decks. That's cool if you are taking this to the Nth degree, but I just want to play some tapes and have them sound "pretty good."

6. I never cared for auto-reverse, again thinking ease of servicing and adjustment..... In my salad days, auto-reverse recording decks were always more problematic... but maybe that's because my components tended to come from Montgomery Wards and Radio Shack....

7. Dolby is fine, but honestly, I often turned off Dolby anyways, or at least that was my habit back in the 1980's... So, if it's helpful, then great. But the latest and greatest Dolby isn't strictly necessary i'm thinking.

8. I'd like it to be black, or at least very dark gray. I have no silver components in my rack. I have a lot of manley gear, however, and all of it is in that "Manley gray" anodized color

9. Real orangey VU meters would be great to glow-match all my tube gear, but I realize I'm getting picky here.

I have about ten dead decks in my basement... Sony TC-KE500S, Toshiba X-10M etc. I've tried to get some of them running but no luck and none is really fancy enough to send out for a $200 service...... Even with that Sony, I was like "wow, this is a cool deck, I'll just use this" and when I took the cover off, inside it looked so cheap like a piece of Chinese Wal Mart garbage and there is something screwey with the head-engagement motor mechanism......

I really don't play a LOT of cassettes, but my 12 year old son loves them, I have about 500 nice dupes from my youth, all on XLIIS-90's and we love to find pre-recorded tapes at record stores and so forth, he has a Walkman and it's fun to pop the cassettes into the big rig once in a while. I don't think I need a $4000 deck. But I'd like it to look the part next to my other components..... I'm slumming it right now with half of a Tascam CD-A500.....

Ideally I'd like a "fancier" deck, but I was looking at some of the Teacs from the mid 1980's like maybe the A-103? Some of them checked a lot of these boxes....

What do you think?

Andrew
 
I'm just going by memory but I think the TEAC A-103 (1978) is weighed down with a lot of inside air, just like several Marantz's and Sansui's of that late 70's time. They are nice decks and since there's so much space inside, belt/roller changes can be much easier. Unfortunately they can be blase outside of the big meters.

AIWA and JVC have always been good to me, later 80's AIWA are black and can be found for decent money with nice features and they sound great. I've also liked Onkyos from this time which can also be a bargain.

Some of these decks would be great for a kid to work on, at least changing the belts. If he's into Walkmans have him visit www.Stereo2go.com he might talk you into a boombox with AUX outs. The top 10 decks are for real collectors, they can be incredibly complicated and need special attention to function properly.
 
onepixel said:
Yeah... I buy stuff for the looks.
But buy stuff for form and function too.

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There was an internet trader or probably seller that sent me a deck like this. I wasn't even paying attention for sometimes it takes me months or so to open a package. It was a deck like that. Took me a long time to find the contact number of the sender. He end up sending the package to the wrong buyer all along for 5 months.
 
MonAndrew77 said:
Greetings Folks,

I have a slightly different take on this and I was hoping you all could help me find a deck..... Here is what I want in no specific order..... (some of these are silly, but I am just being honest....)

1. "Nicer" brand. It doesn't have to be a Nakamichi or whatnot, but I don't want a $79 1982 plastic-y Realistic in my rack of Manley, ClearAudio and Aurender components.

2. I'd like something that doesn't need "servicing." After getting it serviced once, if necessary, I'd like it to just run for many years.....

3. If direct drive (vs belts) is an option, then I guess I would like to have that. However, if belts are easily sourced and self-replaced, then that's OK too.

4. Ideally, I'd like to have a mechanical head engagement over some "logic controlled" motorized engagement. My thinking here is it would be less likely to fail on me.

5. I don't need some crazy-awesome head alignment apparatus like is on the Dragon and other high end decks. That's cool if you are taking this to the Nth degree, but I just want to play some tapes and have them sound "pretty good."

6. I never cared for auto-reverse, again thinking ease of servicing and adjustment..... In my salad days, auto-reverse recording decks were always more problematic... but maybe that's because my components tended to come from Montgomery Wards and Radio Shack....

7. Dolby is fine, but honestly, I often turned off Dolby anyways, or at least that was my habit back in the 1980's... So, if it's helpful, then great. But the latest and greatest Dolby isn't strictly necessary i'm thinking.

8. I'd like it to be black, or at least very dark gray. I have no silver components in my rack. I have a lot of manley gear, however, and all of it is in that "Manley gray" anodized color

9. Real orangey VU meters would be great to glow-match all my tube gear, but I realize I'm getting picky here.

I have about ten dead decks in my basement... Sony TC-KE500S, Toshiba X-10M etc. I've tried to get some of them running but no luck and none is really fancy enough to send out for a $200 service...... Even with that Sony, I was like "wow, this is a cool deck, I'll just use this" and when I took the cover off, inside it looked so cheap like a piece of Chinese Wal Mart garbage and there is something screwey with the head-engagement motor mechanism......

I really don't play a LOT of cassettes, but my 12 year old son loves them, I have about 500 nice dupes from my youth, all on XLIIS-90's and we love to find pre-recorded tapes at record stores and so forth, he has a Walkman and it's fun to pop the cassettes into the big rig once in a while. I don't think I need a $4000 deck. But I'd like it to look the part next to my other components..... I'm slumming it right now with half of a Tascam CD-A500.....

Ideally I'd like a "fancier" deck, but I was looking at some of the Teacs from the mid 1980's like maybe the A-103? Some of them checked a lot of these boxes....

What do you think?

Andrew
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I think dark grey and orange VU meters will most likely put you in the 90's. Logic controlled with lots of gizmos is going to be the main issue.

Take a look at the Yamaha KX 930 and its contemporaries. It won't be the fanciest high-end decks of their time but they do record very nicely.

Kai made quite a few 'shadow grey' decks as well. My GX-7 is one though I am on the lookout for a silver model.
 
I believe he means analog VU meters with an actual pointer. So we are talking up to the late ‘70s. Sounds like a Nakamichi 600II would fit the bill, once restored, except it is wedge shaped so it can’t be stacked.
 
Actually, except for the lack of mechanical button controls, that is probably a better match and better sounding. Certainly less maintenance down the line.
 
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